Industry experts predict that over 50 billion devices will be connected in the Internet of Things (IoT), and many of those devices will use cellular networks for connectivity. Similar to the Internet itself, innovation fueled by low device cost, very low barriers to application development and deployment of solutions containing such applications operating the devices will drive this massive explosion of devices. Unfortunately, absorbing this growth poses challenges for cellular networks, which are fundamentally different from the networks supporting the internet for a number of reasons. Devices deployed on cellular networks must connect to and disconnect from those networks more frequently than devices connected to wired internet networks. Network elements that authenticate devices trying to connect are highly concentrated, and access to network resources, such as cell towers, is geographically concentrated and restricted. Accordingly, cellular devices and applications that are poorly designed or operating improperly can impact other users of the cellular network much more directly than in the normal internet, especially in the case of connected machines whose behavior is controlled by algorithms rather than random action of individuals. For example, it is unlikely that every human in proximity to a given cell tower will choose to initiate a data session at precisely the same moment in time, but a group of machines programmed to operate in a particular way could do so, overloading network resources.
This creates a conflict between people developing integrated service solutions, where devices are connected with specific service oriented applications, who want unrestricted access to cellular networks, and cellular network carriers who want to limit network access to service solutions that do not behave in a harmful manner. In an ideal circumstance, cellular network carriers would approve service solutions before permitting them to access the network. While it is possible for a party intending to deploy service solutions on a cellular network to request that the cellular network carrier verify and certify that the devices deployed as service solutions operate in conformance with that carrier's rules, such certification is both time-consuming and costly. Publication by the carrier of guidelines for device and application behavior, while informative, does not prove compliance to the carrier or allow the party intending to deploy such service solutions to test actual operation and confirm conformance prior to commercial deployment.
Hence, it is desirable to provide a system and method which address the above identified issues. The system and method should be easy to implement, cost effective and adaptable to existing systems. The present invention addresses such a need.